April 16 – May 11, 2014
Curated by Corrie Jackson
Presented by the Blackwood Gallery and the Masters of Visual Studies (MVS) Program at the University of Toronto.
Opening Reception
Wednesday April 16, 5 – 8pm
Artist talk with IAIN BAXTER& and Roula Partheniou at 6:30pm.
A FREE shuttle bus will depart from Mercer Union (1286 Bloor Street W) at 5:30pm and return for 9pm.
FREE Contemporary Art Bus Tour
Sunday April 27, 12–5pm
The tour starts at Koffler Centre of the Arts at Artscape Youngplace (180 Shaw Street) at 12, noon and then departs for Blackwood Gallery, Art Gallery of York University and Doris McCarthy Gallery. Seating is limited. To RSVP email scarte@yorku.ca or call 416-736-2100 ext.44021 by Friday April 25 at 5pm.
Communicating Vessels brings together three generations of Canadian artists from a range of backgrounds and disciplines, with works from 1965 to the present day. These works offer an examination of visual associations that are held by familiar objects and how these assumptions, when disrupted, force a self-conscious renegotiation of the body in its environment. The everyday experience of being in the world is not one of aware perception as consciousness forgets its own phenomena, allowing itself to be constituted by familiar glances. This moment of aware interaction, found in the re-presenting of familiar objects as means of bringing attention to the assumptions of looking, is taken up in the work of IAIN BAXTER&, Luis Jacob, Roula Partheniou and Judy Radul.
Click here for the exhibition brochure.
This exhibition was produced as part of the requirements for the MVS degree in Curatorial Studies at the University of Toronto. For more information, please visit www.art.utoronto.ca
Marcus J. Leith. Courtesy of Raven Row Gallery, London and Trépanier Baer Gallery, Calgary.
IAIN BAXTER& (born 1936, Middlesbrough, England) founded N.E. Thing Co. in 1966, along with his then wife and collaborative parter Ingrid Baxter. N.E. Thing Co. became an outlet for experimentation in the production and dissemination of artwork. The company was dissolved in 1978, when the couple separated. IAIN BAXTER& has gone on to exhibit internationally, representing Canada at the Bienal de São Paulo, 1969. His retrospective exhibition IAIN BAXTER&: Works 1958-2011 recently travelled to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2011) and the Art Gallery of Ontario (2012). He has received numerous awards including a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2004, the Gershon Iskowitz Prize at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2006, and was named a Companion to the Order of Canada in 2007. IAIN BAXTER& is represented by TrépanierBaer, Calgary.
Luis Jacob (born 1971, Lima, Peru) is an artist, writer, curator, and educator based in Toronto. His work has been exhibited internationally at venues including documenta 12, Kassel; Barbican Centre, London; Generali Foundation, Vienna; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Key solo exhibitions include L’oeil, la brèche, l’image/The Eye, The Hole, The Picture at the McCord Museum, Montreal in 2012; Pictures at an Exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto (2011); and Tableaux Vivants at Fonderie Darling, Montreal (2010). Luis Jacob is represented by Galerie Max Mayer, Düsseldorf and Birch Contemporary, Toronto.
Roula Partheniou’s (born 1977, Niagara Falls, Ontario) work is marked by an interest in material play and the double-take. Graduating from the University of Guelph in 2001, she has exhibited both nationally and internationally, with recent exhibitions at AHVA Gallery, Vancouver; Convenience Gallery, G Gallery, and Mercer Union, Toronto; DAAP Galleries, Cincinnati; Truck Gallery, Calgary; Mass MOCA, Massachusetts; MSVU Art Gallery, Halifax; Plug In ICA, Winnipeg; and Modern Fuel, Kingston. Her work is held in numerous private collections, and in the corporate and institutional collections of the Bank of Montreal, TD Bank, MunichRe, University of Toronto, and the National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives. Roula Partheniou is represented by MKG127 in Toronto.
Judy Radul (born 1962, Lillooet, British Columbia) studied at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, BC, graduating in 1990 with a Bachelors degree in fine and performing arts. She continued her graduate studies from 1998-2000, at Bard College in New York. Radul’s interdisciplinary practice includes photography, sculpture, performance, video, and mixed media installation. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, and her creative writing and essays have appeared in a variety of publications since 1991. Radul’s In Relation to Objects was shown in the 2009 exhibition All that is Solid Melts into Air, curated by Dieter Roelstraete in Mechelen, Belgium. Her recent solo exhibitions include Daadgalerie, Berlin (2013), Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver (2012), World Rehearsal Court, Henie Onstad Art Centre, Høvikodden, Norway (2011), World Rehearsal Court, Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery, Vancouver (2009), and The Power Plant, Toronto (2003). Judy Radul is represented by Catriona Jeffries Gallery in Vancouver.
This exhibition was produced as part of the requirements for the MVS degree in Curatorial Studies at the University of Toronto and supported by the Department of Visual Studies (UTM) through the Graduate Expansion Fund.
My deepest appreciation goes out to Barbara Fisher, Julian Haladyn, Juliana Zalucky, Christine Shaw, and Phil Lee for their guidance and encouragement. David Silcox, I sincerely thank you for both your time and conversation, and the generous loan of works for the exhibition. Dax Morrison and Michael Beynon – your installation prowess is unmatched. My gratitude to Derek Liddington for both your thoughtful discussion and contributions in helping the exhibition take form. Endless thanks and love to my friends, family, and colleagues for their patience, guidance, and kindness. And with my heartfelt gratitude, to all the artists, thank you for your time, discussion, and continued output, they are invaluable. Sincere thanks to Birch Contemporary, MKG127, TrépanierBaer, and WORK Gallery in London, England for their cooperation and support.
- Corrie Jackson
Communicating Vessels is one of two exhibitions running concurently produced as part of the requirements for the MVS degree in Curatorial Studies at the University of Toronto.
At the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery:
An Introduction to the Language of Partial Seduction: Works by David Buchan
April 1 - May 3, 2014
Curated by Sabrina Maher
For more information on the program, please visit www.art.utoronto.ca
